The Banksy Backlash

The Times of London reports on the revolt against Banksy that’s been brewing among the graffiti artists and radicals Banksy purports to represent. Someone even defaced one of Banksy’s better known works known as Mild, Mild West:

When he first began redecorating walls and buildings in his native city of Bristol in the early 1990s, the graffiti artist known as Banksy was frequently accused of vandalising private property.

A decade and a half later, having won fame and a considerable fortune, he faces a different charge. The graffiti artist – who fiercely defends his anonymity – now stands accused of causing gentrification. His street art is being held responsible for proposed regeneration projects; his aerosol paintings are blamed for raising house prices in formerly deprived neighbourhoods.

The Australian picks up the story and offers a few auction prices to illustrate how far up . . . and down the artist has traveled in the past few years:

Only two years after an acrylic and spraypaint work on canvas called Bombing Middle England fetched £102,000 ($212,000) at auction at Sotheby’s, and a year after a wall mural sold for £208,100 on eBay, Banksy is now being accused of betraying his core audience, England’s working class. [ . . . ] Banksy’s collectability may be diminishing. When Bombing Middle England sold for £102,000 in 2007, it exceeded expectations by more than £50,000. Last October, Turf War, a portrait of Winston Churchill with a mohawk, sold at Bonham’s for £60,000, which was £20,000 below the auctioneer’s expectation.